Verboten
by MystiklSushi
Summary: Historical PruCan AU. In 1941 in the German occupied town of Bussy, France, Matthew Williams-Bonnefoy, a boy not old enough to enter the war before the armistice was signed, must find a way to live with the Prussian-born soldier billeted in his home.
1. Brightly Wound

Forgive any historical inaccuracies...most of my research comes from historical fiction and wikipedia.

Romance to bloom in later chapters! I promise.

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><p><strong>Brightly Wound<strong>

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><p><em>Verboten. Verboten.<em> If there wasn't any other word of German he could recognize, it was one that he'd heard too often. _Forbidden._ It was posted on notices on every corner that Matthew Williams-Bonnefoy somberly wheeled his bicycle past, and he was hard pressed to remember what Bussy had been like before the occupation had begun. The windows of most houses were still tightly fastened behind shutters and thick curtains, though it had been almost a full year since the Armistice had been signed and the city overrun with German soldiers. _Verboten—under penalty of death._

Matthew leaned heavily against his handlebars as he stopped on the road, allowing a gaggle of soldiers to pass. Their boots and belts caught the sun, shining brightly in the warming April morning. The dusty almond green of their crisp uniforms mirrored the greenery of newly awakened grass covered in dew. But Matthew couldn't help but see these men as monsters, glinting cold and metallic and moving as machinery. Even relaxed and laughing, the fact that they were here in his town—in his home—only drove home that they were here as conquerors. Watching them pass caused the young boy to thoughtfully chew at his lip, a worried habit his father, a celebrated hero from the first war, had been trying to work out of him for years.

Thinking of his father was a painfully touchy subject. Francis Bonnefoy had fought bravely in the last war and returned home a decorated hero at the age of nineteen, lean and handsome and drunk with stories of his spreading fame. He'd settled into his birthright as head of the Bonnefoy estate and presided over the small number of tenant farmers in the quiet town basking in peace while all of France celebrated her victory. He had taken a wife, a pretty young thing from Tours, a quiet dreamy creature with large doe-like eyes. Matthew had inherited those eyes and gentle features while also taking her life during a long and complicated childbirth. The marriage of ten years of trying for a child was cut short by the production of one. Monsieur Bonnefoy was devastated, but dutifully raised his son, grooming him for the day he would take over as head of the family.

Then, with the coming of the new war, he had been called away. Though he was in a privileged position, the obligations of the past war and expectations of the villagers gave him little choice. He took up his arms to once again defend his country, and left his son in the care of Marthe, the household cook of twenty-seven years. She became a surrogate mother for young Matthew, now about to break seventeen (too young to take up arms, but certainly no longer a child), and he'd given his solemn pledge to his father that he would keep the estate in running order until his return from the war.

Monsieur Bonnefoy left in '39. The letter informing Matthew that he was a prisoner of war came in the spring of '40. France signed the armistice in June. And then, on July first, 1940, Matthew Williams-Bonnefoy turned eighteen. Too little, too late.

Cycling on, drinking in the sight of a bright spring morning (and there, another bright red flag boldly emblazoned with the black swastika, another notice marked _Verboten_), Matthew was on his way to drop in on the tenant farmers under his family's name. Aside from the regular reminders of the war—soldiers marching here and there, boarded windows of houses, empty shops that had long since run out of useful wares to sell—it was difficult to place this spring morning as different from any of the others he had seen in his childhood.

From all accounts, Bussy had been spared from the worst of everything. Birds still chirped on the roadside, and the flowers covered the hillsides. From all around, one could hear the lazy humming of fat, golden bumblebees and smell the freshly turned earth where women and children and the elderly still tended their farms with the help of the sons lucky enough to have returned home. Life continued on in their home. It could not stop on account of a change in masters.

Not counting the current occupation, there had been little else to stir the village since the flood of refugees from Paris had trickled further out to the countryside, or the travel-weary Parisians had turned back, more hopeful of what they would find left of the city than of facing further horrors on the road.

Matthew had heard of the shortages of food, and even in this farming community things were becoming scarce. Petrol was gone. Wheat was rationed carefully, and fresh meat was an unheard of commodity in the village. Even the things he had carefully stored with the help of Marthe; the salted butter, the dried pork, the coffee, and the last of the chocolate and matches, were starting to run out to their last. If not for the help of the soldier who was billeted in his home—

His tyres squealed as Matthew braked suddenly, flyaway wisps of blonde clouding his vision as inertia enacted and he nearly lost his spectacles.

_His soldier_.

They were all around town, the people mandated to open their doors to the victorious young men. The Louise-Mullers, the Angelliers, the Langelets, even the Craquants and Péricands along with every farm in the valley. And his estate was no exception. By this time, they had become a fixture, taking on the surnames of the families that housed them. It was no abnormal thing by now to hear one referred to as _The Michauds' Jan_ or _The Beaumonts' Niklas_.

His soldier was a lieutenant, the Bonnefoy estate matching in grandeur to his status as an officer. And Matthew had never seen anyone quite like him. The man was lean, all muscle, with a young, chiseled face, cheekbones high and softly pronounced, and a sharp chin. The officer's hands were large, fingers long and tapered. His hair was fair, thin blonde wisps that appeared to hold no color of their own, looking almost silver in whatever light he was in.

But perhaps most remarkable were his eyes. Matthew had seen the color in a rabbit once, and in some mice. A sort of inhuman bloody red, interrupted only by the black of a pupil and bordered with the same whiteness that made up the rest of his color.

Matthew felt color rising to his face as he realized just how much he had been looking at the man, drinking in his details, and tried to brush it off as a study of the enemy. As it was, the man had been boarding for several months, and they had yet to have a proper conversation. The fault being Matthew's. Every time the other had tried to start one up, asking a simple question or trying to tell a bit of a joke (his French was quite good, while Matthew's own German was made up of about five words—not many of them nice), he had received a curt reply. Marthe grudgingly dealt with him most of the time, but it did not stop the officer from trying everything in his power to worm a reaction from Matthew.

There had been the various gifts of fruit—real, fresh oranges— as well as other commodities and the politenesses extended with that lopsided smile. _Nice weather today, Monsieur Bonnefoy. Oh—excuse me for using your father's name. Why don't you give me something better to call you by?_ Every encounter was dealt with in as short a way as the boy knew how. He was a proper Frenchman, after all, and no matter how captivating the enemy might appear, he would not bend his patriotism, would not betray his father and his country by befriending the officer who stayed in his guest room. No matter how charming he was.

Clearing the thoughts from his head, Matthew kicked his cycle off down the road again, intent on getting back to work. He had to make sure he became someone his father could be proud of when he returned from the camps.

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><p><em> I shall never grow up<em>  
><em>Make believe is much to fun<em>  
><em>Can we go far away to the humming meadow<em>

_-Brightly Wound_


	2. Laughing City

S-so this story seems to have a lot of people on update alert. Which sort of surprised me, considering the number of reviews...Maybe I need to write more before people can tell me where things are going well and where there needs to be some more definition...haa...;;;

Either way, I'm glad that people wanted to read more...so I'm going to work on making the continuation worth the attention!

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><p><strong>Laughing City<strong>

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><p>The bells tolled twelve in the town square and in the bell tower of the church. It was noon on Easter Sunday in Germany, and the great clock set into the wall of Bussy's town hall as well as the one adorning the church reflected that time. However, in the Williams-Bonnefoy household the great grandfather clock in the atrium, with its dark bass tone echoing through the bare hall, was one chime short. Here, as in all the French households, it was only eleven AM, no matter what time the occupying soldiers insisted they were living on.<p>

Matthew counted the hollow chimes, sure that he could feel each one of them reverberating within his heart in the same way they did the heavy mahogany body of the clock. Morning mass had been over for an hour, as the church had no choice but to operate on the time indicated by the Germans, but Marthe would not be serving Easter lunch until noon, punctual to a fault. Any attempt to persuade her to relinquish even a morsel before then would end in dire consequences and a severe dressing down that he was simply not prepared to deal with. Hungry and finding that he had no heart to work on Easter Sunday, Matthew had given himself up to picking through a book in the sitting room while he waited.

Aside from the occasional bustle of pots and pans from the faraway kitchen, the estate was silent, as if holding its breath. The April air spilled in through open windows, warm and damp and carrying the scent of peach blossoms. Stiff in his formals, Matthew could hardly enjoy it, just as he had little taste for the novel in his hands. He had no place to be content in a time like this, he knew. And so he never allowed it of himself, always trying to remember what it was that he was doing, of his responsibilities to his father and his country.

Looking around the sitting room, it was not easy to forget that they were in a war and on the wrong side of it. Marthe had gone through with him, pointing out here and there what needed to be hidden away, what needed to be removed from sight, and what precious family heirlooms must never touch the filthy hands of those _Boche_ that were invading the town this time. The walls were bare, and even the ornaments that nobody had liked in the first place (that ridiculous vase from the mantle with the hideous pastel peacocks—a gift from some obscure relative that nobody dared throw away just in case he should visit and remember it, for example) were packed away and hidden with such care that Matthew was not sure they would ever find everything to put back in its proper place again.

Things not easily hidden (the piano, the library), had been locked tight and Marthe had claimed she would defend the keys with her life. But of course, these were the things that their German lieutenant had asked for within his first day in the estate. The library was understandable, Matthew thought, but taking the keys to the piano must have just been a show of power. It had not been played a single time since their soldier had come into the house. And it was just as well. Matthew had about as much taste for music as he did for books and entertainment in these times.

As he always did when his thoughts strayed to the German, the one who could smile just as easily as he could draw himself to military attention, who was polite to the women in the village (according to hearsay), and who was just as often as not playing with the regiment's dog or the village children in his off time, Matthew found himself perplexed. On the one hand, whenever he looked at him, he could only imagine that this Lieutenant Beilschmidt was a decent person. And by all accounts, here in the village he was quite well behaved—and even liked by some, grudgingly. But on the other hand, Matthew could just as easily imagine his long, delicate white fingers curling around a trigger, firing a gun at the French soldiers, lobbing grenades into trenches, mercilessly covered in blood and dirt and grime while counting off prisoners of war one by one into a truck...

No. Matthew had to overlook whatever seemingly good qualities this man had. On principle, on what he had done, who he had killed. It was possible that his own father had—

"_Guten Morgen_!"

Matthew was jolted out of his thoughts, his book thumping to the floor.

"Since I believe it is still morning in this house. I am almost sure I counted eleven strokes just now, but I may have been off," came the rest of the statement, casually said from outside the sitting room window, the owner propped against the sill as if he owned the place. Bitterly, Matthew remembered that he essentially did. It took a moment longer to register that he was being openly called out on breaking a rule.

"Good morning, sir," Matthew replied stiffly, reaching for his book from its place on the floor, the tips of his ears going red at the display and the humiliation of having lost his composure so easily in front of this soldier. The lieutenant, encouraged by the answer, let his smile grow a little wider. It looked to Matthew like a teasing smirk.

"It is a really good morning, actually, what with this weather. Good news for the holiday. I just got in from the square, and I have to say, it is impressive how many people managed to pull out their finery to celebrate, despite everything." The lieutenant leaned against the window sill, and continued on conversationally, as if it were a normal occurrence between them. Matthew resented him more with each passing second. "But I guess there are just as many people dressed finely and holed away in their homes. This really is a surprising village."

Matthew tried to muster up his worst and most poisonous glare, knowing that he must look like a petulant teenager by the other's reaction. It was hardly fair, with such a small age difference between them that it should be that way. But there it was. The only reason he was not a soldier was because the army had considered him a child until it was already passed too late. His soft features, too used to the care of the estate, only accentuated the problem.

"I am just back from the morning mass," he eventually answered, defending himself. He was unsure of why he felt so self conscious. Normally, he would have pointedly ignored any advances in conversation from the other. It must be the spring air getting to his head, causing him to save his reputation from a glorified murderer. "I will be going again to Vespers when it is time."

"Quite the upright Catholic, aren't you? Not that I expected otherwise." The amused edge to the officer's voice grated on his nerves, rubbing him the wrong way. Matthew sat up a little straighter, sending a scathing look through the window over the tops of his spectacles. He hated to admit how very much he felt like a woman, spurning friendly advances like this. But the soldier just would not take the hint that he did not wish to consort with him in any way.

"I notice that none of you soldiers took part in the mass."

At that, the man chuckled. "The iron cross is the only one I need, you know. Orders from above, but a different one than you're accountable for." He chuckled again, propping his chin against the arm resting in the window sill. "You know, I am pretty sure this is the longest we have ever talked before."

Matthew cursed the way that his cheeks tended to flare up with color when startled. Pointedly, he moved his eyes back to the book in his lap, as if staring at it would enable him to absorb the contents. It was obvious his concentration was elsewhere. The lieutenant only seemed more amused, but after a few more failed attempts to coax conversation from the tight lipped boy, he gave up with an easy shrug, not especially discouraged or disappointed. Matthew heard his boots against the garden path as he disappeared from sight.

He did see the soldier again later in the day, as he and Marthe left the house to go to Vespers. It was Marthe that commented on the sight of him racing around with the army dog that sometimes came home with him. It was a lean and muscular creature, and seemed to be well trained, even if it was a mutt. The officer was playing a game, tossing a stick as hard as he was able and the dog would bound off, tongue lolling as he made to retrieve it and start the cycle over again. But it was the cook's keen eye that identified exactly what they were playing with.

"That _Boche_ has snapped a limb from the peach tree! He'll be the death of us, killing our fruit before we can even think to eat it. What won't they take from us...our homes and food. The good linens. If your father were here..."

Matthew placed a steadying hand on Marthe's shoulder as she bit back tears that threatened to well up at the thought of Monsieur Bonnefoy. She had been working in their home for twenty-seven years, and was really as much a member of the family as anyone by now. If not for the portrait of his birth mother, once decorating the wall in the foyer and now carefully tucked into a secret hiding place, Matthew was sure that his image of a mother could be summed up in this woman, red cheeked and a full head shorter than himself.

"Come now," he soothed, trying to put some heart in it, though he really did not believe in much of what he was saying, "This is the third regiment to pass through. He'll be gone soon enough, and then we can get back to our normal life again. Hold your chin up. Father will...will be proud of us when he gets home."

The mention of Monsieur Bonnefoy was enough for her to gain back her fighting spirit. Patting her hair carefully into place, she set her jaw firmly and straightened her skirts. "So he will. Come along now, no more time for dalliance. They won't hold the church for latecomers, no matter what family they may be from."

As they walked on, Matthew could hear the sounds of laughter and barking floating from the garden echoing on far longer than they ought to have.

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><p><em>Follow me down to the laughing city with people changing all their minds; it's crazy. <em>  
><em>I want this ma'am, that ma'am, no sir. Yes ma'am, that sir; <em>  
><em>Well, I'll tell you one thing, if you're keeping something...<em>

_-Laughing City_


	3. Head Against the Sky

****I'm back with an update! I finally found the exact direction I wanted to take the story.

Please enjoy!

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><p><strong>Head Against the Sky<strong>

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><p>Spring blossomed gently into summer, the late June weather fine and hot, and the villagers and Germans of Bussy found themselves strangely at ease. They were too far removed from the rest of France, from the rest of the world on these lovely summer evenings. Gentle stirrings of warm breezes mingled with the humming of insects, sweetly drifting over young couples as they visited in secret. The Germans and the French were by no means reconciled, and being found out by the rest of the village would create scandal and uproar, but who could resist the sweet intoxication of young love when it called? Especially in these times!<p>

Most of the villagers feigned a blind eye or a deaf ear, should they catch a pair of voices whispering sentiments in broken French and German. The men had been too long away, and so long as the wives remained faithful, who would mind the young girls learning to turn on their charms? The now familiar Germans, who gave candy to the children and acted so courteously and helped with the rations, these boys deserved a break as well from their hard training. So the softer hearts of Bussy claimed, while the harder ones scoffed, yet feigned ignorance all the same.

Matthew was hard at work himself, ignoring everything there was to ignore about the soldier billeted in his own home. Quite a feat, as Lieutenant Beilschmidt had taken up position in the sitting room window once again, commenting from time to time on the niceties of the temperature or the weather. Matthew staunchly refused to give in to even the most neutral of responses, for fear he'd be consumed in another pleasant conversation with a man he was supposed to hate.

And it was getting more difficult to hate this man who shared his home as the time went on. It had begun after Easter. He'd allowed Herr Beilschmidt to entice him into conversation over literature, finding that they had a great deal in common when it came to authors, but a plethora of opposing ideals. Many enjoyable hours were spent picking apart one another's interpretations of classic works, finally coming to resigned agreements on this one, and firm disagreement on that. They had found in one another an intellectual equal.

Literature was not the only area in which the Lieutenant excelled. Mid-May saw the beautifully ornate key to the piano produced, and the soldier had asked for permission to play. Permission! Marthe, who had been previously somewhat appeased with gifts of real (and now quite illegal) white flour for bread, and lard for the pans, and even on several Sundays real meat, barely knew how to react in her surprise at the request. "Certainly, you're the master here," had been her gruff cover, but Matthew had caught the touched look she had given the man. He could have easily treated them much worse, but behaved himself as a humble guest.

Permission granted, he had waited until Matthew was firmly established at work at the account book for the tenant farms (and would therefore have no means of escape from the sitting room, where they conserved the household candles) before he began to play his first tune.

Matthew was awestruck. The soldier's long tapered fingers, which he had so often forced himself to picture holding a deadly weapon or covered in blood, moved across the keys with a natural elegance. The song began soft and serene, in the high notes, now moving to mid range, somber yet still soothing. Matthew's eyes were drawn to the man's expression, how his whole posture, usually ramrod straight, was now filled with emotion. The music pulsed on into something darker and militarian, beautiful and frightening all at once. Deep throbbing notes crashed through the room, piercing Matthew's music starved heart with an unsettling longing.

And then, without warning, the music stopped.

Lieutenant Beilschmidt turned to face Matthew, expression lost for a moment, like a frightened child, before he glossed it back over with an apologetic smile.

"I was carried away. I'm sorry. That was much less pleasant than I intended it to be."

When Matthew did not answer, being at a complete loss for words after such a performance, the soldier pushed on.

"I have not played in such a long time. Would you believe that in the last home I boarded, the family piano mysteriously fell out of repair once I asked to play? Somehow the wires were all cut. All but one key...here." He tapped the highest ivory key at the end, the note hanging in the air between them. The German with his apologetic smile and Matthew with his undivided attention.

"Was that piece just now," the boy breathed, realizing somewhere along the line that he had almost forgotten how, "About...?"

"The war? Yes. And my home, which I have not seen in some time." The German touched the keys gently, making no sound. "That was the nice part back in the beginning. The quiet one. I studied music there, actually. Before all of this. Call it silly, but I had an aspiration of becoming a concert pianist."

Matthew digested the information, feeling sick at the realization that the other man had shared a portion of his humanity with him. He was becoming too much a person, rather than a nameless uniform. His now directionless hate was beginning to go sour in the pit of his stomach.

"But that is obviously not a topic that interests you. I'll put this away. Sorry to interrupt you in the middle of your work." The lid of the piano slid shut, hiding the keys away. Frightened by the sudden discovery of the Lieutenant's humanity and the threat that it might disappear so quickly, Matthew turned quickly away.

"I was just finishing. Continue playing if you wish. It doesn't make a difference to me."

Nearly every night after, piano music could be heart coming from the Williams-Bonnefoy estate.

Still, Matthew continued to run the estate as best as he could, with the restricted resources available. The farmers complained that they did not have enough. The townspeople complained that the farmers were hoarding precious food, and the argument turned back around that there were not enough goods to raise the food they were accused of having.

The truth of it was that everyone was hoarding, and precious few were completely honest about what they had. Government set prices were too low to cover inflation, and there was a thriving "common market", which was more black in trade than common. Illegal goods passed hands among those who feared they had the most to lose, and it was being whispered that even guns were available, if you asked the right person the right questions.

Most common of all, though, was a simple system of barter, made complicated by social hierarchy and second guessing what a neighbor might be hiding for himself. It led to a good number of malicious complaints against neighbors, and an appetite for convicting one another for treason that reminded Matthew more of the histories of the Revolution and guillotines than anything modern should have.

Luckily, the Williams-Bonnefoy name remained relatively clean. Among the villagers, Matthew himself was something of an object worthy of pity. First was the matter of the quarter of English blood on his mother's side. Then, too young to have joined French ranks with his celebrated father, he was left to care for his estate like one of the village women, and subjected to billeting a high ranking soldier to boot, though he was now of age. Certainly his pride had taken a terrible blow!

His manners and conduct of the tenant farmlands were also in his favor, and not too many thought of the quiet lad as being uppity. His seemingly good standing (though not friendly, another point in his favor) with the highly-ranked German in his house was also an asset, and one of the main reasons nobody had tried to talk him into lying about his age and joining one of the growing resistance forces, such as the _maquis, _who recruited any man over twenty_._ There was peace in their village, and that was enough. The situation was not so bad. These Germans were bearable.

Against his better judgment, Matthew was beginning to find his soldier bearable as well, and even agreeable at times. It was a thing he was determined to put a stop to.

"It really is something, the weather tonight. It makes a man glad to breathe, being in this garden."

The summer air was indeed as pleasant this evening as Herr Beilschmidt remarked, though the silence he received in answer was frosty. Matthew remained sitting with his back to the open window, straining his eyes to check the bankbook by weak candlelight. If only electricity weren't rationed as closely as flour or petrol!

"I suppose you wouldn't know, though. Being in that room all the time, or at your work talking to the farm people. Books and manure are all you breathe, I guess." He flashed a cheeky smile through the window as he leaned in. Matthew caught the leather polish scent that lingered in any room the soldier had been in. He pointedly ignored it.

"What exactly does someone have to do to make you speak freely? You're worse than a woman, going on like that with...what is it? French pride? Save it for daylight hours." The breezy tone with which the Lieutenant spoke couldn't hide his growing annoyance. "When the sun goes down, all we are is human." It may have been his imagination, but Matthew thought the soldier sounded almost hurt. But when he turned to answer, the man had already moved from the window and down into the garden.

Feeling guilty for having behaved poorly, he snuffed his candle and went to apologize.

The garden at night was fragrant and lush. Garden was a bit of a misnomer, as the land extended for several acres around the estate house, and as the only people left to tend it were himself and Marthe, it had gone fairly wild. There was nothing left to pay a gardener, what with the expense of just living, and it seemed an extreme frivolity in wartime to exert energy growing and tending plants that weren't strictly for eating. As such, a variety of summer blossoms were growing now unchecked in the long grass. There was quite enough moonlight to see by, and that was how he found the Lieutenant, uniform buckles glinting silver by the pond.

A long silence passed between them there on the bank, seated side by side in the lush grass. A willow trailed its branches along the surface of the pond next to them, and all manners of small frogs and nighttime insects called to one another in the stillness.

Just as Matthew began to open his mouth in apology, he was cut off.

"We're being sent home."

"You're...what?"

The officer smiled, something sweet and wistful hiding behind his eyes and in his smile.

"We got the orders today. By mid-July I'll be in my own home. There's not much point in our being here anymore." He shrugged, as a short apology for France's loss in the war. "The fighting isn't over yet, but even a short while..." Lieutenant Beilschmidt trailed off, but Matthew could feel his relief. He was going back to his own home and family.

"I'm glad for you," he answered, surprised that he actually meant it. "I'm sure you've missed it."

"Well, I have been well taken care of here, don't be mistaken." The German fell back into the sweet smelling grass, making himself comfortable while Matthew felt a creeping warmth up the back of his neck. Mostly from guilt at the poor hospitality the man was praising, but a portion of it was from the praise itself. "If I'm lucky, my brother will have the same time for leave. That would be best. I'm the older brother, but you'd never know it. Ludwig is a full head taller and built like an ox. He was going into boxing before all of this."

They lapsed into silence again, each thinking of family members far away, and whether they were still alive and well.

"And you, young Monsieur Williams-Bonnefoy. What about you?"

"Matthew," he corrected. "Just Matthew is fine, Herr Lieutenant."

"That's Gilbert to you," the officer grinned, feeling his breakthrough to a first name basis. "You're going to miss me."

"I'll miss the extra butter," Matthew answered with some cheek.

There was a beat of silence before Gilbert positively roared with laughter, which proved to be contagious. They laughed as if it were a joke of tremendous wit, both having so little to laugh about recently. Eventually, though, both wiping tears away, the laughter dissolved into hiccups, and then into quiet breathing, exulting in the release.

Lying there together in the stillness, basking in their sudden mirth and the moonlight and hidden in the tall grass, they kissed.

Neither was quite sure who moved first, but the innocent brush of lips soon coursed into a passionate clack of teeth and tangle of limbs. They both understood too well the brevity of life, and how quickly things that seemed certain could change.

It wasn't until Matthew's trousers were halfway off that he came to himself. He shoved Gilbert off him, scrambling back. They were both disheveled and wild-eyed, breathing heavily and half-roused.

"This is a mistake," Matthew murmured, heated and confused. Gilbert could only watch bewildered as he stood and hitched back up his trousers, looking back towards the house. What if Marthe had seen them out here? What they had been about to do was unacceptable. French and German be damned, they were both men, and the village nor the army would forgive them for it. The Nazis carted people off for much less.

"This is a mistake."

Gilbert sat still in the grass for a long while after Matthew had left.

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><p><em>Sleep with your head against the sky tonight.<br>I can't count how many times you have made me cry.  
>And I marveled at the way your hair glows in the light.<em>

_-Head Against the Sky_


End file.
